Call goes out to Arab-Americans

By Rasha Saad

According to Arab League spokesman Talaat Hamed, the meeting discussed "the means by which Arab countries can support the efforts of Arab organisations in the US to enable them to play their role in introducing Arab causes to the US public."

The two-hour meeting was attended by permanent representatives to the Arab League, Chairman of the Egyptian Press Syndicate Makram Mohamed Ahmed and other prominent Egyptian writers and intellectuals. Hamed described the dialogue as "positive and constructive". He said that although no concrete or specific measures were adopted, the meeting will be the springboard for cooperation between Arab-Americans and their countries of origin. Follow-up meetings will be held to assess the progress made, he added.

Calling nearly three million Arab-Americans an effective political force inside the US, Abdel-Meguid urged them to coordinate and unite their efforts to support Arab causes, especially the Palestinian cause.

Recent efforts by Arab-Americans and other pro-Arab groups in the US to rally round Arab causes reached a peak earlier in May when US President Bill Clinton became the first American president to address a gathering of Arab-Americans. Abdel-Meguid said that the move was "a great victory for Arab-Americans," and recalled having sent a letter of congratulations to James Zogby, head of the Washington-based Arab-American Institute, who led the Arab-American side to last week's meeting.

Responding to criticism that Arab-Americans have not traditionally been active in pressing for Arab causes, Gamil Mattar, former assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, said that it was difficult for Arabs to form a lobby because they were scattered throughout the US, whereas Jewish-Americans are concentrated mainly in New York and California.

Mattar also said that the way the US administration views a lobby will determine its efficacy to some extent. Citing the Greek lobby, he said that according to a Greek study, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had asked Greeks residing in the US to form a lobby so as to help the US pressure Turkey vis-à-vis the Cypriot problem. Accordingly, Mattar believes that the positive signals which the White House has been sending to Arab-Americans over the past two years were meant as an indirect message to the Jewish lobby. "Washington might be sending a message to the Jewish lobby to stop pressuring it on Arab-Israeli issues. Otherwise, it will support the formation of an Arab lobby," he added.

Speaking on the difficulties which Arab-Americans face in the US, Zogby pointed to the attempts of some Jewish groups in the US to put obstacles in the way of the Arab lobby. "They try to contain the role of Arab-Americans even on the local level," he said. However, Zogby was hopeful that the next phase will witness progress. "Throughout the past 20 years, Arab-Americans have been able to follow a certain strategy by which they have been able to overcome these hardships and prove themselves as an effective power in the American community," he said.

Zogby added that Clinton's accepting to speak to Arab-Americans was a mark of their present weight in the US. He explained the importance of maintaining dialogue between Arab-Americans and the Arab League, adding that Arab support will help Arab-Americans in their attempts to change America's stereotyped image of Arabs and their political concerns.

Zogby also called on Clinton and the US administration to take Arab public opinion into consideration and to work to correct what they see as a US policy of double standards and blind support for Israel.

There are fears, though, that divisions between the Arab countries will not be conducive to creating an effective Arab lobby. According to Mahgoub Omar, a specialist on Palestinian issues, Arab-Americans should try to exploit the minimum level of understanding between Arab countries. "They [Arab-Americans] should keep themselves out of inter-Arab disputes. They should work according to the rule which says that Palestine is above all Arab disputes," Omar said.

He added that Arab-Americans should support Arab rights objectively and work to prevent US interference in Arab domestic affairs.